Microsoft is pleased to announce the public availability of the Beta release for the Windows 7 Software Logo Toolkit. The toolkit allows ISVs to submit and receive the “Compatible with Windows 7” logo for their products.

Improvements, including self-test for applications, instant approval of passing applications, and a streamlined waiver process dramatically speed up the logo testing and the submission process. Fees for logo submissions have also been eliminated.

As a valued logo partner, the “Compatible with Windows 7” program also offers a variety of benefits including co-branding, MS partner points, and premier placement on a variety of online consumer facing sites.

When I first heard about Web Slices, I wasn’t excited. Then I saw Kris Amerijckx (kidpaddle on twitter) announce that he implemented Web Slices on MSN.be so I checked it out. To my own surprise, I’m still using it after more than a week.

It’s pretty cool to get the MSN news straight form my favorites bar in IE8. Heck, I wish my newspaper (De Standaard) did the same.

The only thing I fear is that I will be running out of space on my favorites so I still need to see if there’s a solution for that.

There are quite a few new UI featuers and UI changes in Windows 7. Enough to check out out the Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines I bleive which has been updated with information about the new jumplists, touch and more.

Many of the ISV’s I meet operate in a 'best of breed’ vertical where customers mix and match solutions from different vendors. This brings very clear challenges to the table. How does your solution integrate best with other solutions and also how do you manage identities in this heterogeneous environments.

Here’s a toolkit to train yourself or you developers on some this latter issue of identity management.

The Identity Developer Training Kit is a set of hands-on labs and resources designed to help developers to take advantage of Microsoft’s identity products and services. Being designed for developers, the kit focuses on the Geneva Framework: however it also gives guidance on how to take advantage of Geneva Server, Windows Live ID, the Microsoft Federation Gateway and the .NET Access Control Service (which is featured in a renewed and expanded lab). Most of the tasks are demonstrated both for ASP.NET web applications and for WCF services. We went to great lengths for eliminating as much as possible the friction that is traditionally associated with security samples, by providing configuration scripts and tools which automate many of the setup steps.

I’m really glad to see this type of content being produced as I know it addresses some of the key issues Belgian ISV’s are facing.

Get listed in the Windows 7 Compatibility Center and reach millionsToday, millions of customers and sales professionals use the Windows Vista Compatibility Center to discover compatible devices and applications. Soon, we will be launching the Windows 7 Compatibility Center. Be sure your products get listed in the Windows 7 Compatibility Center by submitting your compatibility status directly to the Compatibility Center Team

Some applications you just don’t want to bring forward to a newer version of Windows. That’s perfectly normal. Every ISV typically has a popular version of their application that they left behind some time ago. Not a single developer left on the team who has experience with that code base let alone with a motivation to look at it again.

Of course you (the ISV) also like to upgrade/upsell all of your customers to the newer version. The one you are making compatible with Windows 7. But some customers will demand that they can stay on their old version of your application while moving to Windows 7.

Good news is that Windows 7 will offer tools to do exactly this. They are Windows XP Mode for small business and MED-V for medium and large business.

Basically both provide a virtual machine environment to run legacy applications in. But the great thing is that users don’t see that the application is running in a virtual PC as XP Mode and Med-V integrates seamlessly with the host OS.

The main difference is that with XP Mode you will need to install everything from the Windows 7 desktop while with MED-V lets you centrally manage all of this.

- Windows Virtual PC is the latest Microsoft virtualization technology for Windows 7. It is the runtime engine for Windows XP Mode to provide a virtual Windows environment for Windows 7. With Windows Virtual PC, Windows XP Mode applications can be seen and accessed from a Windows 7 desktop.

- You can install applications in Windows XP Mode just as you normally would on a physical PC. For example, you can install applications via web, from storage devices, or from physical media such as CD/DVD.

- To run your application directly from the Windows 7 desktop, just go to your Start menu.

MED-V adds management to XP Mode

Belgacom Group – “MED-V saves us time in standardizing our desktop across the multiple entities of the Belgacom group…With thousands of users in our environment, MED-V will significantly reduce the time required for testing and migrating the applications we have.“

It should be clear to everyone that Windows 7 is getting ready for business! Since last Friday, the Release Candidate can be downloaded by developers and IT Professionals on MSDN and Technet and soon all enthusiasts will be able to download the RC too.

It’s exciting to see so much enthusiasm and read many positive reviews on the product. This makes it even more important to get your (the ISV) solution ready for Windows 7.

If part of your solution is webpages then you need to check out Expression SuperPreview. It will make testing pages across multiple browsers and browser-versions much much easier. You can download the trial.

There is lots of goodness there. Of course, personally, I’m mostly interested in the features that will help me manage my Inbox from hell more efficiently.

Improve user productivity with the ultimate inbox experience. Basex Inc. recently estimated that the average number of corporate e-mail messages received per person per day is expected to reach more than 93 by 2010. In addition, businesses lose $650 billion annually in productivity due to unnecessary interruptions including those from e-mail (Basex, 2008). Exchange 2010, together with Microsoft Outlook 2010, will give people more control over their communications with features such as these:

-MailTips. Warn users before they commit an e-mail faux pas such as sending mail to large distribution groups, to recipients who are out of the office or to recipients outside the organization, helping protect against information leaks and reduce unnecessary e-mail messages.